Now for the second edition of Luke's piece on Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Don't forget to check out Luke's blog, Quiet, Dignity, and Grace.
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Insights Gained
I am young in my knowledge of
Fulton Sheen. I have read 10 of
his books and listened to hours of his audio catechism (the same one which John
Paul II used to learn English). It
is not possible to succinctly state everything I have learned from this very
amateur study. However, I will try
to explain what I consider to be the four most powerful things I have learned
from this Servant of God.
Insight #1: The Importance of
the Eucharist and the Holy Hour
Reading Sheen, one constantly
runs across Eucharistic metaphors.
He frequently employs analogies of wheat being sifted, ground, chewed,
etc. to our world today. We in a
sense are that grain and our lives, if we unite them to Christ's, will follow
the pattern He set. The world will
chew us up; we will suffer. On the
other hand, Christ, by becoming the bread of life for us, enables us to receive
the merits he won on the cross through the Eucharist.
So the suffering we encounter is
a sign that we're living the way Jesus did. The world reacts against us because it knows that if our
love is real and our faith is true, it is doomed. What could possibly keep a Christian on the path in the face
of so much resistance? Only the
very gift of Christ, who both gives us the true bread from heaven and IS the
true bread from heaven, containing in itself all delight.
Fulton Sheen makes the Eucharist
the source and summit of his thought precisely because it was the center of his
spiritual life. This was one of
two promises he made on his ordination to the priesthood: he would make a holy
hour in the presence of the Eucharist every single day. It is one he never failed to keep, no
matter how busy he might have been or how ill his health may have been. In the later part of his life, Sheen
spent years doing retreats for priest.
He noted that he felt people needed some concrete advice after coming out
of a retreat if it's going to make any real difference in their life. His advice was always the same: make a
Daily holy hour. It was simple
advice to give, but challenging advice to follow. But precisely its simplicity is what also made it attainable.
This practical goal he set wasn't
always practical for him. He
writes in his autobiography of having to do some extra convincing sometimes to
get into churches for his Holy Hour.
When did he find time in his schedule? In the morning.
Sometimes, Very early in the morning. He writes in his autobiography of once having to climb out
of a window because the church he was visiting had been locked up by an
impatient pastor.
And don't forget: this wasn't a
man with lots of free time on his hands.
He wrote and studied constantly.
His work as a professor at Catholic University kept him in the books and
he even destroyed his course notes every year at the end of the year. Any teachers out there know how much
extra work that would entail.
Archbishop Sheen had early morning flights, plenty of train rides around
the country and Europe doing extra catechetical and evangelical work for no
extra money. He was the head of
the Propagation of the Faith apostolate in the United States, and the private
theologian to a handful of celebrities.
How many times did he fail to keep his daily holy hour? Zero. This is his first recommendation in building a spiritual
life and anyone who has ever tried this, even temporarily, knows how powerful
it is. Sheen was built up by this
grace for decades!!
Insight #2: The Beauty of True
Humility and Piety
Modern day readers who look back
on Fulton Sheen's works may find his piety a bit pervasive. We're not used to it these days. We expect people to keep their religion
to themselves and not to let it out of the box too often. Certainly we don't expect religious
fervor to permeate every conversation we have or sentence we write. But, when you read Sheen, you read
piety.
For instance, whenever the late
archbishop wants to refer to Jesus, he has a handful of options available to
him. He could use the following:
Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Lord, the
Messiah, etc. There are countless
ways to refer to the second person of the Trinity. And if you were typing on a typewriter or heaven forbid
using an actual pen and paper, some of them would save more space than
others. Sheen constantly used the
title "Our Blessed Lord."
Now, this may seem like a small thing. But when you read book after book and listen to talk after
talk you start to see just how much extra time it would take to say "Our
Blessed Lord" rather than Jesus.
Add to this that whenever Jesus was referred to as "he" or "him,"
those words are capitalized, you start to see how much reverence Sheen had for
Our Blessed Lord. Archbishop
Sheen's respect for God's name was no doubt due in large part to his devotion
to the Holy Hour.
Aside from his piety and the
beautiful way in which he utilizes poetic imagery in his theology, Fulton Sheen
also displayed a deep-rooted humility.
He famously said at a retreat given for inmates that there was only one
thing which separated him from the men imprisoned: they got caught! His autobiography is filled with deep
looks into his own self and almost uncomfortable descriptions of his own
failures. He feared, at the end of
his life, that he had been too flashy, accepted too many of the world's
comforts, and had too much pride.
He also has a painful recollection of a moment in which he, ever so
briefly, hesitated when greeting a leper.
He had meant to place a crucifix in the hand of an African leper when he
hesitated and dropped it. After
that, he picked up the crucifix, and proceeded to kiss the hands of every
single leper in the village as he greeted them. That moment and the description of it shows how penetrating
Sheen's self-knowledge was.
And what is the great mark of a
saint? Seeing himself in God's
eyes. Holding himself accountable
the way God would. Surely Fulton
Sheen knew what great good he was called to. The slightest imperfections were things he saw clearly about
himself. That humility is probably
what further spurred his great piety and devotion. You see, when we, like Sheen, realize how lowly we really
are, suddenly genuflecting, praying before meals, using reverence when speaking
the divine name, a morning offering, nightly examination of conscience, and all
the other common practices of piety which Sheen constantly recommended become a
natural reaction to the simple truth that we are not God. The Archbishop knew this truth
intimately.
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Check in soon for the final installment.
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